Alexa's 'Brief Mode' makes the digital assistant way less chatty

Amazon's new Kindle Fire tablets are likely to be hack-resistant

If you were counting on getting all imaginative with the firmware on a new Fire or 7-inch Fire HD, you might want to check out a recent forum post over at XDA. Written by user kinfauns with input from another XDA regular called pokey9000, it concerns evidence that -- unlike the original Kindle Fire -- both of these devices come with more sophisticated protection, including locked bootloaders and the use of "high security" features offered by Texas Instruments' OMAP processors. Such discoveries probably won't inspire the same degree of outrage as certain other locked devices, considering how Amazon is understandably focused on its own ecosystem and advertising, but they might still count as a disadvantage against the pure Android Nexus 7. The XDA thread ends with only the merest hint of hope -- the potential for a workaround similar to what's been used on the Nook Tablet -- but it's hope nonetheless.